


Seven Days in Hell

by MightBeEntropy



Series: A Degree in Theology [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angels, Archangels, Demons, Dreams, Eden - Freeform, Everyone is a masochist in a non sexy way, F/M, Faux Uriel, Flashbacks, Gen, Ghost Uriel, Heaven, Hell, Its actually only like two sentences of gore I swear, Lucifer is a dumbass, Michael and Lucifer are the Apocalypse Twins tm., Not Beta Read, Post-S4E10, Post-Season/Series 04, Swearing, Uriel is dead, sorry - Freeform, too soon?, we die like Uriel, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-01-21 04:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MightBeEntropy/pseuds/MightBeEntropy
Summary: Hell may breathe like a living animal, but Lucifer can’t help but miss living animals anyway. And the sun. And stars. And Chloe, who is right up there in the list among the celestial bodies and the music and life of Earth, just as crucial and resounding. And Lucifer wants. He wants to spend every second of his immortal life next to her, but Lucifer has a history of wanting things he cannot have.Lucifer does what he does best and avoids thinking about her until he cannot anymore.In which there are flashbacks and history is often more complicated than it seems.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Lucifer & His Siblings
Series: A Degree in Theology [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535036
Comments: 9
Kudos: 79





	1. Hello Monster in the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lucifer has issues in general and pretends his manifestation of Uriel is the real thing and it is neither healthy nor sustainable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello monster in the mirror,  
How are you this fine day?  
Your toothy smile and fractured lips  
Make everything okay.

_“ Samael, I was looking for you. ”_

_Amenadiel hides his undignified snort when the other angel turns around hastily, his wings shedding stardust in their wake like an overeager mortal critter. Samael’s bright smile flicks into existence, thrilling the nearby stars to blaze in response. He looks radiant and utterly in his element, his wings framing him in their brilliant glow as the planet behind him perching in the emptiness of space reflects light like his own personal halo. Samael’s eyes land on him, and he croons a greeting. “ Amenadiel! ”_

_Spreading his wings, he closes the distance between them, seeming completely unabashed and delighted to see his brother, which is his default reaction to seeing anyone, and part of his charm. Amenadiel feels warm anyway, and affection for his little brother burns as brightly as Samael does. Surrounded by stars, they could not shine the way the angel who had sewn them into the fabric of reality could. Light flourished under Samael’s graceful hands, a work of art for more riveting than any choir music. Light-bringer, their Mother once called him. And such light he wrought._

_There is something stilted and rigid in Samael’s shoulders and in the way he is holding his wings, but his open expression looks too relaxed to be suffering genuine distress, Amenadiel reasons. Samael would explain anything on his mind soon enough, anyway._

_“ They ’ ve stopped tithing. ” Samael presses his hands to his wrist and pulls anxiously at the pale skin of his arm with two fingers like a cherub tuning a harp. He then gestures vaguely at the planet he had been concentrating on, and shrugs. “ I told Father it was a bad idea to let them know there was a higher power in existence. The people were happy, and praised him at first, but wanted control over their own lives in a way they felt they did not have. The people grew resentful and rebelled. ” The very concept is foreign and distasteful in Amenadiel ’ s mind, so he quickly shakes it away, barely registering Samael ’ s expression when he spoke of what the people wanted. _

_“ Do you think their desire is valid? ” Samael ’ s tone is dangerously wistful, and his dark eyes are desperate and pleading. “ Father says they ’ re allowed to want, didn ’ t He? Their wanting is a gift, from the heavens and from my stars. ”_

_“ You might be gifted with will, but we do not have to concern ourselves with whether or not mortals want anything. It is Father’s will we have to carry out. ” It sounds practiced even to Amenadiel ’ s ears, and Samael must agree, for he pulls a face, his quivering tension melting away._

_“ I know that! No need to recite it for me like I’m a wily little fledgling. I was just wondering why Father doesn’t want to give them freedom and will. ”_

_“ It is not our purpose to question, Samael. ”_

_“ Yes, yes, and I 'm not nosy little Raphael. I ’ m not seeking the secrets to the universe. ” Samael pouts and ruffles his wings like a disgruntled pine cone. “ I already know most of the universe ’ s secrets, so why- “_

_“ Maybe He ’ ll give his next creation the freedom to will? ” Amenadiel is quick to try to appease him, a nervous sense of dread settling in his chest at his little brother ’ s query. Samael is oblivious to his worry, and the dread builds further when Samael ’ s eyes glaze over, staring past Amenadiel to the planet he was supposed to be in charge of annihilating. His lips move wordlessly. _

_“ Did He send you to discipline them? ” Amenadiel tries to divert Samael ’ s attention to a less controversial topic._

_“ I ’ m not disciplining them, I think. If that ’ s what Father wanted, he would have sent Michael or you. ” Samael snaps back like a distant image suddenly coming into focus._

_Amenadiel studies the lush green of the thriving planet, and nods. “ Father is looking for you now, Sammy. You should finish up. ”_

_“ Oh, of course! ” Surprise flits across Samael’s face. “ Father mentioned he wanted a new star as well. I might as well speed things along. ”_

_Samael snaps his fingers. _

_The firmament of the spinning planet creaks and groans with power._

_ “ Ready to go now? ”_

_Samael laughs. “ I ’ m sure there ’ s no need to rush. It can ’ t be that important, can it? ”_

_Samael grins at Amenadiel’s sudden silence, flapping his hand up dramatically. He gasps in mock surprise. “ Is Father intending to make some big momentous decision that may change our fates forever? ”_

_The young star blazes behind him, white spreading across its surface._

* * *

As far as he was concerned, his existence started with his fall. Anything that had occurred before that had happened to someone else, someone whose story had not yet been worth telling. No one really cared about what happened to Samael, Light-bearer and Demiurge of Will, but Lucifer the Morningstar and first Fallen with a capital ‘F’ and what he stood for had spread faster than the time it took to raze a planet. Samael was inconsequential now, a background and origin story that the newer inhabitants of the universe were unaware of. One day, Samael had simply stopped existing and Lucifer stepped up and took his place, identical in face but not in heart.

One day, Samael had discovered free will and betrayal. Another day, Lucifer had started a rebellion.

_(Samael hit the ground so fast his bones crunched and turned into glass and then he was Lucifer from then on because it was not Lucifer that fell, not Lucifer that screamed at the fading sky, but poor betrayed Samael, and Samael hit the ground too fast and died so only Lucifer could exist. No one thought about Lucifer like a poor broken toy, the way they grieved Samael. Lucifer was a creature of triumph and blood who had the audacity to wear Samael’s face. Lucifer wanted to scream louder and see what they would say when they realised Lucifer and Samael screamed the same.)_

Everything important had come after his fall. His kingdom. His subjects. His siblings and the stiflingly place he once called his home were as much of an afterthought as his old name was.

When he returned to Hell, nearly a decade later and his heart ripped out of his chest, he made the startling discovery that his existence might have been over for a while.

His story had ended a while ago. Maybe it had ended when he fell. Maybe it ended when he bade his heart goodbye and left it with his home.

What was the glory of an existence that followed the scheduled monotony of Hell’s whims? Among the dead human souls and teeming soulless hordes, Lucifer was not alive anymore; not quite. He remembered being alive, remembered the rush and colours associated with the burn of cocaine in his nostril, remembered the pounding of his blood when he pressed close to someone, taking great pleasure that in that moment, their greatest desire was _him_. Living was the chase of hunting a killer and bringing them to justice, or whiskey at two in the morning with his piano and music for company.

Lucifer punished traitorous demons and delegated work. Lucifer kept Hell’s denizens in line and made sure everything was in order. Maybe Lucifer had died like Samael had. Maybe Lucifer died when his wings were peppered with so many bullets that they felt ten pounds heavier. Maybe Lucifer had died protecting Chloe somewhere along the way. It would be a lovely, poetic end, nothing like the unending horror-story epilogue that dragged on afterwards.

And what an epilogue it was.

Hell breathed like a living animal.

It was an infernal cesspool of sin and suffering and it knew, with every earthquake exhalation that rattled through subterranean caverns burrowed into the foundations of the world. It roared like the ravenous world eaters beneath the sulphur pits and geysers, slumbered like the drugged eldritch entities that had not awoken since the dawn of time. Hell was nigh petty with the melancholic nature of its king, spitting fire in the face of its inhabitants. The demons howled as fire scalded misshapen features, scurrying away from the magma flood and acidic gases that plagued the banks of Styx like a grim crow hawking death and bad omens like hallmark greeting cards. Hell was not angry, not personally. Hell was warning its people.

The king was furious.

His rage was a white-hot creature that reared and demanded retribution in the form of spilt blood to baptise the ashy floor at the foot of his throne. Righteous fury, frustration, the desire to protect burned in his breast, but it was a poor filler for the aching grief that screamed with him as he raked his wings along the sides of labyrinths and pillars like the claws of a humongous feline. No demon dared tempt his rage, it would be akin to muzzling a hellhound on a hunt. Idiocy. Even the most populated sectors of Hell were quickly emptied of visible inhabitants, although careful listening would yield the rasping murmur of infernal tongues in the background, and eyes blinking from the shadows.

The last time Lucifer had lost his temper to the point where Hell had blazed with his emotions, his right-hand had ensured his rage was directed for something constructive, like smiting a rebellious city clean off the face of Hell. By Dad, he missed Mazikeen. Maze, for all her insolence, had been a rare occurrence; a genuine friend. An ambitious steward, a loyal bodyguard and a rather creative bed partner, but a friend, even when she had still served under him. She deserved her freedom. Several stewards of Hell would have disagreed in that moment, for Mazikeen had a remarkable way of calming the king by channeling his anger for other purposes. Like music. Or _other_ areas. But as Maze remained absent, Lucifer remained angry.

Lucifer’s anger was a knife, a sharp, boiling knife that scraped the skin off flesh. It was unwavering heat that made the insides of demons bubble and blister and burst like blooming roses. Not that he would ever give the satisfaction of a quick death to the likes of sniveling, hypocritical loyalists like Dromos, the disgusting creature. It had begged, for a long time, as Lucifer slid the edges of his wings back and forth like he was playing a piano with them, back and forth on raw and dripping hide. Network of red and black ichor crisscrossed like threads on mutilated fabric, scraps of skin barely held in place.

Dromos, in Lillim form, had eyes blue like electricity. _Had_ blue eyes like Chloe’s. Lucifer found _had_ it unacceptable.

_Had_. Lucifer had dug his fingertips of his right hand into its sockets, other hand braced along Dromos’ tattered and splintered cheekbone. His nails found the rubbery bundle of nerves under skin and bone and slotted his fingers firmly around the it. The left hand that was cupping the demon’s face, almost deceptively gentle, was suddenly an unyielding force that pushed-

And Dromos screamed at the sudden blackness in its left eye. Frayed red veins spilled out its socket, sending a watery fluid with the consistency and colour of egg yolk down its face like tears.

Lucifer did not look at the eye.

He was in the process of wiping the floor with the ichor of a forcibly demoted Greater Demon when he realised he had been on vacation for a very long time. Hell had not forgotten him, but its inhabitants might have.

And there was something he had to do about that.

He made an example of the other demons that had eagerly flocked to earth under the guise of helping, and cheerfully reminded the amassed crowd of gore-hungry spectators that there was a reason the Infernal hated the Divine. He would have pointed out that they were actually fucking terrified of divinity, but it would have won favour with no one. While he lectured, he plucked the six hundred eyes of a demon with neat and precise pulls, the white of his shirt getting steadily darker with ichor and his ears getting steadily deafened by its untethered screaming. He put an end to it and let the beast gargle blood like mouthwash, suddenly missing its tongue. Another traitor whimpered, rotted limbs straining away from the twitching unattached muscles at their feet. His wings remained white throughout the execution, a stark reminder of the angel that fell from heaven. Demons might have been mocking seraphim with cruel, raucous laughter for centuries, but actually going out of their way to piss off angels tended to be suicide. Unless you were a greater demon and actually stood a chance at winning. Angels had a very straightforward way of fighting; make it stop moving as fast as possible. Demons liked to play with their food.

Lucifer implemented what he liked to think was a bit of both. No further elaboration required.

Grief followed him wherever he went, a cold spot on his shoulder, and the itchiness in his chest under the maroon dress shirt that was once white. His shoes skidded in gore and an object was swept a few feet away.A dismembered eye, <strike>piercing blue,</strike> rolled up to stare at him.

He ignored it icily, viciously drowning his woes in the screaming fates of traitors and cowards.

_(How do you sleep at night?)_

He did not.

There was no night, just cold darkness and emptiness,<strike> and he felt so very lonely</strike>.

* * *

_“_ _Why must I smite them?_ _”_ _ He asks his brothers and sisters._

_“_ _It is Father_ _’_ _s will._ _”_ _ They answer. He understands will. He is will. Father wants him to. But he doesn_ _’_ _t want to. But it is the same thing. Samael is confused. And he will ask. _

_“_ _Why must I smite them?_ _”_ _ He asks his Father, to his siblings_ _’_ _ horror._

_They drag him away from the icy silence of his Father’s rooms and scream at him in a cacophony of disbelief and fury._

_Samael feels small and stupid. He doesn’t want to smite anyone. Michael likes smiting. Michael is smarter, better than Samael, so Michael should be smiting instead. Samael does not understand._

_“_ _Why?_ _”_ _ He tries again, alone._

_“_ _They are not following my commandments._ _”_ _ His Father says. _

_“_ _Oh._ _”_ _ Samael does not understand. How could they not follow commandments? It was not possible. Were the mortals more powerful than Father? They were weaker and more powerful. _ _“_ _And I am punishing them?_ _”_

_“_ _Yes._ _”_ _ Samael is not satisfied. Whywhywhywhywhy? _

_“_ _How do they do it?_ _”_

_“_ _Do what?_ _”_ _ Father knows already, but He is pretending because Samael makes him angry._

_“_ _Break the rules._ _”_ _ Samael is stupid, Samael doesn_ _’_ _t know when to shut up, Samael makes everything worse and everyone angry._

_“_ _They have free will._ _”_

_“_ _What is that?_ _”_ _ Isn_ _’_ _t he will?_

* * *

On the second day, curiosity and anxiety waged a war in the pits of his gut like two neighbouring countries fighting over land. Curiosity won.

His feet took him to the inner rings of hell, the black ravines and blue crevasses like raw scars in the ground, cracks from a crater that had burned its way into the bedrock landscape of hell. Lucifer remembered when it was made. He remembered the burning. The blood and flesh boiling. The ash. The inner circles smelled like dust and someone being burned alive. Himself, specifically, because the inner rings on the upmost level of hell were for the guilty souls who were fundamentally good deep down, or had real potential for changing. They tended not to warrant torturing from demons, although the system had been flaky since before he had left and demons did not really care about who was guilty or not anyway. They were nearest to the above, the grey, pitiless sky that rained an unrelenting torrent of ash, a promise of redemption and change. All the soul needed to do was wrench themselves free of their prisons and be redeemed.

Not that there had been even a single redeemed soul for eons. There hadn’t.

Guilt was a chain that wrapped around one’s very soul and squeezed away hope and air. The guilty always had ash in their lungs and metal in their eyes.

The _very _guilty had brimstone and sulphur. Like a titanic sprawling dragon hissing acid. The lower levels stank of it, from the frozen lakes of Cocytus to the chaotic urban dystopia of Dis. It could never be drowned by the smoke and industrialists of the city, even if they were determined to try. The other demons wove the smell around them like a badge of honour, a sign of glory and satisfaction after a job well done. All the pit workers were used to it. Even the upper levels reeked of it, and the great sulphur rivers in the lowest region of hell made the atmosphere there nigh unbearable.

Lucifer missed the smell of sex and alcohol in his crowded nightclub. Sweat. The smell of expensive cologne and clean clothing. Mint air freshener. The taste of the salty air by the beach. The smell of perfume-

Well.

His hand caressed the black door, its feeling stark against the rough gravelly texture of the black columns of hell, like a marble wall in the center of a labyrinth of brambles. It called to him, like a warden to a prisoner, and the ash in his lungs burned with greed and itch, whispering that the itch would only fade with his entrance through the door. Someone tapped a welcoming but melancholic ditty on piano keys on the other side, the tune sending a shiver up Lucifer’s spine. He breathed onto the door, muttering under his breath, and for a moment, symbols bleached across the door, spelling his name in confirmation. A painfully familiar voice called from within.

_“_ _Sam, can I come with you?_ _”_

_“_ _Sorry, Uri. Father told me this was my own duty._ _”_

_“_ _Sam? Can I sing with you?_ _”_

_“_ _Sam, do you think the others are mean to me?_ _”_

_“_ _Sam? Samael?_ _”_

He stepped into his hell loop and the music halted in the middle of a verse.

“Uriel.”

“Lucy.”

He stared at his brother sitting at a grand piano in a room that is deceptively like home and traced the jaw and eyes of Uriel, or rather, the phantom of Uriel that was the culmination of his own guilt given a tongue and face. Because the real Uriel would have been wiped out of existence by Lucifer wielding the blade of Death, his immortal soul fractured beyond repair and blown into the cosmos and into dust_. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,_ he laughed to himself. Ultimately, even angels were dust. The dust of humanity was so much more _divine_ than the filth of the Silver City.

He let himself imagine that there was a chance his brother survived, a fragment of soul existing in the puppet of Uriel that existed, because otherwise the guilt would eat him alive. He felt no regret, knew he had little choice, but guilt was rarely as logical, and it plagued him. He could have been nicer, eons ago, to his little brother. Except that Samael had enjoyed bugging his few older siblings far more than he liked entertaining any of his younger ones. Samael had kept them at a distance, and spent his time with his stars instead, and sometimes the other archangels and seraphs. He could have tried to talk to Uriel more. Except that Uriel was a bloody stubborn bastard who could not be reasoned with once he put his mind to something, even as a young soul. So there was nothing Lucifer could have done.

A bloody shame that the ghost of Uriel looked exactly like Samael’s little brother from ages ago. Unforgivable, even. Both of them were. What he had done was unforgivable, even if the world seemed to have forgotten. Had his father even noticed the absence of one of his archangels? His Father conveniently missed one voice from the heavenly choir but refused to forget other petty grievances?

“_Upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.._.” He murmured.

“Intending to get trapped here again, brother?” Faux-Uriel spoke up stonily, jarring Lucifer from his thoughts.

“I didn’t think I could be; not anymore at least.” Lucifer had no regrets, no chains to pull free from, just the itch in his lungs, reminding him of something he already knew. “I’m surprised you are still my guilty conscience.”

Uriel smiled thinly, the monotone of his voice warping. “You’re still guilty, brother. Although if you’d like a change of scene, I’m certain you have other crimes to choose from. Killing Cain hadn’t been as satisfying as you thought, had it?”

For a moment, his penthouse blinked to white walls and the steel of a demon blade weighed in his hands. For a moment. Blood on his shoes, blood in his eyes.

Cain. Human. Immortal. They could have been friends. He did not really want to think about it, much less acknowledge that Cain’s newfound desperation and subsequent bloodlust might have been his own fault.

Lucifer breathed in, frustration nagging at the corner of his mind as faux-Uriel simply stared, an unsettling grimace tugging at the edge of his lips. The king of hell studied the surrounding penthouse scene diligently, willing the scenery to stay. Silence reigned for two solid seconds before Uriel spoke again.

“Why are you here, Lucy?”

Lucifer hummed with feigned nonchalance. His eyes did not meet his brother’s, and he took a sudden interest in the polished floor of the illusionary penthouse, the corners of the room suddenly seeming dark and hostile, and the awkwardly shaped shadows of furniture flickering like glitches in the fabric of reality. It was meant to be uninviting, and if the lord of hell were not used to his realm’s shenanigans, he might have been creeped out by what was a transparent attempt at ensuring the hell loops’ inhabitants stayed trapped and did not question or explore their surroundings, their very human paranoia and fear of the unknown _(and guilt)_ locking them forever. As it was, it caused a metaphysical headache, analysing the hell loop scenery; finding the secret figurative cogs in hell’s fundamental mechanisms was not worth the migraine. And he was deflecting, as his therapist would point out. “No reason.”

Uriel laughed. “I’m an extension of your consciousness, brother. We both know you’re lying.”

Lucifer clenched his jaw and raised his burning line of sight to Uriel’s dark hair. “I don’t lie, contrary to what humanity is eager to claim.”

“Always with the semantics. You miss Earth.” Straight to the point, more frank than cryptic Uriel usually was. A fault of the loop, then. It happened sometimes, uncharacteristic behaviour spurring the loop residents towards a realisation. Being vague had been a specialty of Uriel’s. Samael had once asked Uriel about his choice of music, Before, and had been received with two hours of mysterious non-answers. Alas, Uriel’s opinions on instruments turned out just as complicated. Ariel insisted he liked lyres, to which Isafel had laughed at with such scorn that it remained a mystery to Lucifer. Uriel did have his moments of sharp, stinging honesty on occasions.

The manifestation of Uriel sounded as cutting as the real thing.

“I miss the vices- “

“You miss Chloe.” Uriel’s words cleaved through any explanation or excuse, to Lucifer’s resentment. Deflection was _his_ specialty.

“You- “

“You’re in denial.” The bored condescension was biting in its dismissal.

“I am not!”

The unimpressed stare Faux-Uriel leveled at him was quite the novelty to witness, as was the way he settled back onto the piano bench like the conversation was over simply because Lucifer’s opinions were too unimpressive to bear consideration. “You are.”

Uriel had always been a stubborn little shit, dredging up painful memories with the same brutal efficiency as Lucifer’s therapist, with none of her grace. The leftover rage and overwhelming grief seared his chest, and injustice that could have been the cousin of his barely kept longing pushed the king of hell to stumble towards his brother, something toxic and foul like a venomous adder on the tip of his tongue. His fists clenched and unclenched to grip the edge of Uriel’s creepy ensemble, intent on shaking sense into his brother and suddenly flinched when his palms closed on a decidedly solid, and horribly familiar hilt that he had last seen being thrown into the unborn universe he had wheedled his Mother into entering.

The blade of death, the dagger of Azrael, the war and blood mongering knife that felt too real, too present in his hands, dripping blood all over the floor.

Guilt slammed back into him, and Uriel watched with stony eyes, the wound at the side of his abdomen bleeding unnaturally fast. Uriel, oh Father, Uriel, who he hardly knew but missed anyway, Uriel who told him that he could never hurt his brother, and Uriel who used his dying words to ensure there would be no divine war- Oh Father. Uriel whose blood stained the underneath of his nails permanently.

Uriel the cold-blooded would-be killer who spoke of decimating innocent, living humans like an annoyed teenager disposing garbage. Who orchestrated car wrecks and plotted to murder his..._his__…_

_Not-definitely-not-no-nope-not-Uriel_ smiled, crimson staining his perfect teeth. “_Gotcha_.”

The doors were never locked. Lucifer breathed in. Out. In again. But no one ever left because of the ash in their lungs and the chains in their soul. Out.

_Not. Locked._

Lucifer spun on his heel and made for the elevator door, breath uneven and ragged. He watched from the corner of his eye as the knife dissolved. Black pulled his vision, and he paused to stare back. Uriel’s eyes watched soullessly, sighing and turning around to tap a melody clearly, suddenly losing interest in the hurried exit.

_Oh lord, oh lord, _

_What have I done?_

“You shouldn’t spend all your time in the guilty nightmares of the dead,” Uriel pointed out absentmindedly. “Hell loops are meant to torture their inhabitants, not you, Lucy.”

“I bloody well know that!” Lucifer roared through the closing elevator door, finalising his decision to leave. 

“Then don’t make your pining worse by living in a fantasy.”

“I would never.” He mumbled to himself as he stepped out into the breathing world of sulphuric air and black pillars. His subconscious was a masochistic asshole.

The ash in the air was nothing compared the that of his lungs, but he did not cough.

* * *

_He doesn’t understand, he is oblivious, he is an idiot, all his siblings are saying it but Samael just does not see their point. Why? Why why why? He misses the time when things were simple, when he would be told to create new stars and he could sing with his siblings without them eyeing him as if he were unstable and on the verge of snapping. What an outburst would entail, no one is sure, but his siblings stop singing with him. His Mother stops talking to anyone. His Father_ _…_ _ does nothing, preoccupied with mortals. And Samael does. Not. Understand._

_“_ _Why are we different from mortals?_ _”_ _ Gabriel laughs uproariously, something arrogant slipping into his face._

_“_ _Can we break the rules?_ _”_ _ Michael looks at him like he is insane. Michael looks afraid._

“_Can I have free will?__”__ His Father tells him to stop asking questions._

_“_ _Why?_ _”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bug me on tumblr under the same name.  
Next Chapter: Fatricide is a Sin


	2. Fatricide is a Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael is introduced. Predictably, he is Lucifer’s twin, and seems to be the only person who has truly reconciled the images of Samael and Lucifer. Must be a twin thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies on this chapter taking so long. The entire fic is already ninety percent written, I’m just a major procrastinator. Fingers crossed that I’ll have the next and final chapter, 'Everybody's A Masochist' out by April.

_ “I don’t wanna!” Michael wails to the heavens, hazel eyes welling up with shiny, crystalline tears like glittery stardust pulled from the cosmos. He tries to puff himself up, feathers splayed in disarray, but Samael puffs back in spite, twacking his twin over the head with a swift wing. _

_ Michael glares, lip wobbling. Samael scoffs loudly and crosses his trembling arms to hide his hypocrisy. “Don’ be a crybaby. I’m not gunna wait forever, Michael!” _

_ “Then you go first!” Samael squawks as he is shoved forward towards the edge of the polished silver platform, a dizzying sense of horror and nausea swelling in his stomach at the sight of the emptiness and floorless beyond, trying to scramble away from the dark expanse just next to the city. It is too big, too empty like the great blackness Mother sings of, and Samael is well acquainted with fear. His anxiety spikes, and it is noticed by his weeping brother, who narrows his eyes, forgetting to sob in fear. “See, you’re afraid too!” _

_ “Am not!” Samael retorts indignantly, taking several contradictory steps away. Michael follows him, clinging to his bare arms and pulling them both nearer to the platinum roads. _

_ “Are too!” _

_ “Am not!” Samael screeches, a sound that could make any celestial’s intestines revolt. _

_ “You’re lyin’!” Michael cries, flapping his wings in excitement. _

_ “You promised to go first!” Samael hollers back, resolutely ignoring the sharp drop just a step off the platform. _

_ “I changed my mind!” Michael looks properly scared, more afraid than when Samael had roped him into pranking Gabriel and Gabriel pretended to die. Samael is acquainted with fear, and the familiarity of the emotion grounds him. _

_ “You’re not gunna fall,” He blurts to Michael before he can actually process anything he says. He does not like the weird, twisted frown on Michael, and it makes his tummy flip. He rambles hurriedly, trying to convince both his brother and himself. “You’re not gunna fall and even if you do, I will jump after you an’ we’ll fall together. Then Ameni will save us! It’s his job, cos’ if we die Father will yell at him.” _

_ “Promise you won’t let me fall by myself?” Samael has not been in existence very long, but he already detests the idea of his brother falling and screaming as he is pulled down far, far away from home all by himself. How would it be like? To be falling and dying for eternity, light years apart from his family, from Samael who can protect him and stop him from doing stupid things? It would be horrible. Samael would rather fall himself. Samael nods to himself, determination surging forth. _

_ “Promise.” _

_ And Samael promises, but he does not think to extract a similar oath from his brother, and the world is changed because of it. _

_ The next time, Samael falls first. _

_ And Samael falls alone._

* * *

Lucifer had gotten the idea of hell loops in a nightmare.

_ Young, naive with traces of Samael and the poison of divinity yet to be corrupted by the infernal. Still an angel, and afraid the fires of the newly crafted hell would burn the angel that the fires of stars and space could not. Losing his soul like the wandering mortals did with every passing day even as his wings and face healed. Sort of. The scarred flesh of a monster that had once been reflected off gleaming surfaces was branded into his mind. No matter how smooth or pristine his skin was, no matter how much he still looked like an angel of the Almighty, he caught glimpses of red in mirrors and metal. He was afraid, petrified that he would awaken one day and the face in the mirror would become his permanently. _

_ Then he would fit in at last among the monsters, he thought to himself deliriously, choking on ash that did not yet exist, choking even though he had no need to breathe. It was not fair that he did not fit in, even here. The other fallen were twisted caricatures of their former selves, like paintings drawn by amateurs; just a little bit too jaded and shaky at the edges like someone unskilled had filled in colours that did not match with one another. Beliel, now proud and scheming Belial, as if removing the ‘of God’ portion of their name made such a big difference. Azazel, utterly batshit crazy and delusional, running around and flapping decaying carrion wings like they were still up in the clouds. It was not fair that even now, he was alone. Even surrounded by siblings that followed him down, he was the odd one out. Hell was dark and cruel. The newly christened Lord Lucifer was not, and it was not fair. _

_ And scant decades after his fall, and he watched his mind burn like his wings did every time he closed his eyes. _

_ (The stumble jolt feeling, his stomach rising and turning into sharp acidic bubbles and bile on his teeth, blood in his teeth because he bit his tongue when he screamed and he didn’t want to give the siblings who betrayed him the satisfaction of seeing him scream as they pushed him he was their brother and they didn’t even hesitate... black black black black he can hardly tell where the ground begins or if there even is a ground maybe it is an abyss and he will keep falling and burning for eternity- _

_ There is a ground, and he hits it. Hard. And when he hits it, everything burns and Samael dies. There is simply too much light, and Samael burns and burns and it burns and his skin is peeling and red and burned and deformed and Samael is dying and screaming and he can’t see his stars, only ash and ash and it is drowning him as he chokes and spits and retches but there is ash is his lungs maybe his lungs are ash and he can’t breathe and he dies- _

_ The ground is no longer black but red and crimson and wet and white like the brightest stardust from his feathers and the world does not seem black anymore and he did this he took away the darkness by being even darker and eating the blackness and shadows and they weigh heavy like chains and ash- _

_ His hands are red and so is his everything when he stares at the crystal-clear water in the glowing lakes framed by black, black that he cracked open and made luminous rivers out of ravines and he is thirsty, he deserves to drink and he laughs brokenly when the water turns out to be boiling acid in his throat burning his tongue and eating him alive but he drinks more and more because he is thirsty and he deserves to drink- _

_ Samael is dead dead dead he is dead dead deadeaddeaddead they killed him, they killed Samael when they pushed him down and Samael fell and died to the darkness and someone else woke up with Samael’s memories, something else, something gruesome and red and brought light like Samael did but was so dark that the dark was afraid and Samael was dead and he is the dark light bringer he is the fallen one the fallen son of the morning the morning star that set at dawn and disappeared forever in the blazing heat of the sun-) _

_ Even wide awake, he caught glimpses of a monster staring back at him from every reflective surface, burned and horrifying as the day he fell. When he turned to scrutinise, his dark eyes and divine visage would be all he could see, now fully healed. Of course. He had healed ages ago. _

_ Hadn’t he? _

_ (He is a prideful creature, one of the first. He is pride. So he does his best to forget how he begged and screamed- _

_ -FatherpleasepleasepleaseI’msorryletmecomehomeIwanttogohomeIwanttogohome-) _

_ When he slept, he was introduced to a whole new different brand of torture. _

_ It was brilliant, beautiful, awful, terrifying torture of the most painful kind, the type of torture that sunk its tetherhooks in the unravelling edges of broken minds and pulled further, pulled like a cat that had found a ball of yarn- chaotic but efficient. It unravelled entire aspects of personality, tore apart the very essences of consciousness and souls to leave behind an empty husk of a person, devoid of memories and only having the capacity to hurt and be hurt like listless puppets. _

_ The nightmares dug into every inch of him and searched for the worst scenarios and for guilt, what made him guilty? What made him him? There was no hiding anything from the monster in his head. _

_ His Father would give him commands, words that thrilled in his ears till they burst and he would listen, just another mechanism, another cog in the wheel of the great plan. The shiniest gear, the favourite, but he did not take pride in it, for how could he? He smiled to himself. Pride was a sin. A woman, a mortal, tried telling him otherwise, once. Father punished her, Samael holding the sword. Eve’s blood and smile stained the underneath of his fingernails when he awoke. _

_ Begging, screaming, thrashing and Michael did not even look at him, eyes cold and unfocused and waiting. Samael sobbed and tried to break free from the mechanical grip on his wings and inched away from the blade at his spine, moving toward Raphael, who watched in horror and grimaced in disgust. Then Raphael shut their eyes and Samael was confused, why were they doing that why whwywhywhy- and the knife at his spine became a knife in his spine and blood on his wings and his last delirious thought was how pretty his wings were when they were red. _

_ And Lucifer woke up. _

_ And Samael broke free and thrust the end of a sprained wing through his brother’s chest and sobbed pathetically, pulling Michael’s blank face into his embrace. _

_ And Azrael tried to plead with him to stop the rebellion, and he shoved her out of his way. He heard her screaming as the bones cracked in her wing. _

_ And Raphael fell, punished for defending him, and screamed as their wings burned even as they kept trying to heal themselves, their wings staying black and scorched. _

_ And Amenadiel dragged him to the gates of heaven and broke both his wings before throwing him down. _

_ He was- _

_ He was _

_ Drowning and acid filled his lungs and Lilith giggled like a delighted child who had found something interesting to play with, pressing horrid claws into his scalp and he was- _

_ Pressed into the freezing metal roads and Michael was laughing but it hurt, the road was too cold and a sword rested under his wing- _

_ He was _

_ He was he was _

_ The king of hell, screaming and burning- _

_ His mother watched silently as his father spoke and the world burned white. _

_ His stars flickered out and so did he. _

_ And he woke up and woke up and woke up again and again- _

_ (Where was the door? Where was the door outside? He had forgotten so many times Samael was dead that falling must have been a nightmare too, it certainly felt like one. So where was the door?) _

_   
  
_

_ When Lillith laughed and pulled him towards the gates of Hell, nails sharp with animosity and amusement, Lucifer was too tired to stop her. Something’s happening, she giggled with such glee that her eyes brightened and Lucifer was forcefully reminded of how much she looked like Eve. Eve, who he had loved once upon a time. Eve, who had been the first person to call him ‘light-bringer’ instead of ‘poison’ which was ironic because he had loved her as Samael but not as Lucifer. They arrived on earth in time to watch Cain pull his brother to his knees and hit Abel’s temple with a rock, the cracking of his skull resonating in Lucifer’s ears long after Cain was gone, carted off by Lucifer’s siblings in a judgemental fanfare before he could even see Cain’s face. Lucifer replayed the image of Abel’s fingers twitching and his eyes rolling as Cain brought the rock up and down and up and down over and over even after his body went slack. _

_ (Michael’s sword was red, Lucifer’s wings were red.) _

_ When the first dead soul arrived, lost and trembling with the guilt of driving his brother to sin, of manipulating his parents and planting jealousy in the heart of a brother he loved, Lucifer weighed Abel with his eyes. _

_ “Misuse of free will to do wrong,” Azrael spoke, not meeting his eyes. He did not ask what she had done to warrant the role of playing ferry to the dead. _

_ “What do you expect me to do with some dead mortal’s soul?” He questioned her, simultaneously studying her expression. She did not answer verbally or otherwise, and she never delivered a soul personally to him ever again. _

_ (“Am I punishing them?”) _

_ Lillith told Lucifer the punishment she had heard had been bestowed on Cain, voice lowering conspiratorially. Lucifer laughed at his Father’s sense of humour. Eternal life. The very thing Lucifer had been accused of stealing away, God granted to a petty sociopathic criminal. _

_ Lucifer lifted a dark-coloured rock off the ground and pulled Abel to his knees. _

_ “What do you desire?” _

_ Abel stammered, eyes dark like Eve’s and filling with tears. His hands flew to Lucifer’s wrists, then covered his face, then over his eyes. _

_ The king of hell brought the rock to Abel’s temple, up and down and up and down over and over again. _

_ “You doomed your brother to an eternity of suffering.” Lucifer told him. _

_ (So did Cain, so did Michael, so did Samael-) _

_ He left the door to Abel’s room unlocked anyway, just in case. Demons watched on excitedly, bowing to their new lord and his twisted, scarred face. Lucifer broke every mirror in his palace and scratched every reflective surface to avoid looking at himself. Stubbornly, frustratingly, the freshwater lake Lucifer used as a moat and deterrent to rebellious demons froze into an impenetrable layer of solid ice that shone like polished crystal, and served to be a mirror where the rippling liquid lake surface had failed. _

_ He could not escape himself, and soon he no longer cared enough to do so. _

If he had a therapist then, they would have probably told him his repressed grief and guilt over what happened during his fall was torturing him. And he would have replied sarcastically and thrown a pillar at them.

Lucifer happened to think the loops were a work of genius, in a twisted way, as they were especially adept at torturing him with images of things he could not have.

_ The demons laughed and rejoiced in being given a purpose, a reason to exist, so reminiscent of how angels were given domains and principles that Lucifer wanted to laugh at them. Somehow, deep down, they were all still fundamentally angels. _

_ Thank you, my lord, Azazel whispered to his feet reverently, their hands wrapped around the hilt of a sword. Lucifer felt nauseous at being worshipped and praised and put on a pedestal while his fallen... associates toiled away, working feverishly with a single-mindedness that could have put Amenadiel to shame. He wanted to scream at them, scream that nothing had changed, they were still doing the Almighty’s bidding in a less direct way, and they were still puppets strung along an ineffable tapestry. But he did not. The demons looked... happy. Full of joy and glee in a way they never had when they were in heaven. Their tongues dripped honeyed praise and oaths for their new king, eyes gleaming madly. But they were happy. _

_ Lucifer wondered how that felt like. _

_ Did they realise they had simply switched their object of worship? Lucifer felt sick to his stomach._

* * *

“My lord?” Lucifer shivered involuntarily, eyes flicking to the figure that disturbed his reverie. Azazel smiled back, and their delight would have been handsome if not for the detached glassy glaze in their eyes, that made them look like they were peering at the world through a very dusty window that sometimes filtered the sights to something different and milder. They saw without seeing, and cooed at dismemberment and entrails as if they were viewing the grand orchestras of heaven.

Lucifer felt responsible for them, in a strange way, even though he had not been personally responsible for shattering the fallen angel’s mind beyond repair. He heard Raguel had played the largest role in convincing the rebellious angels of their wrong doing. Somewhere along the line, Azazel had snapped. Then they jumped after Lucifer, inspiring the other rebels to fall in a very literal sense, and Hell welcomed them with open jaws. Azazel was completely and utterly insane, although somehow instructions and orders trickled into Azazel’s own little world where they were still living in heaven, singing in the choir and playing with their siblings. Probably. Lucifer had made no effort to understand the precise delusion Azazel had submerged themselves into, but the gist of it would leak into snippets of conversation over the eons. 

Sometimes, Azazel would look present, the fog around their eyes pulling away as they helped scheme and organise the legions of Hell, suddenly becoming the sharp and cunning angel that had once fought at Lucifer’s side. Azazel would suddenly be the perfect general, the perfect right-hand who wielded cruelty and malice with the ease of someone long acquainted with the nuances of infernal politics.

In other moments, no words would cause any change in their steely grey gaze, dead to the world or lost in a memory of a life they had now spent more time apart from than they had spent living in.

Poor, mad Azazel, whispered Lucifer’s demons.

Useful, underestimated Azazel, thought Lucifer. Cruel, wicked Azazel.

“My lord!” Azazel looked worried, a pinched and completely unfamiliar expression painted on their washed-out features. Their eyes were greyer than ever, but gleaming like gun metal, a sure indicator of not being a metaphorical world away. Azazel stumbled forward into a crouch, lowering their eyes respectfully. Their lips moved slowly like they were making an effort to be present. “I... wanted to be one of the first to welcome you back, um. Lord. But. You seem... distracted.”

When not deluded, Azazel was more observant than other demons gave credit for. “And I suspect that you’re the only one with the metaphorical balls to face me after my display.” Lucifer was guessing, but the longer he spun the idea in his head, the more it made sense. At least Astaroth had been actively avoiding him based on the lack of any respectable welcome at the gates, and every demon who had some semblance of rank that Lucifer might have been tempted to speak with had given him a wide berth sometime around the same time he had ripped Dromos’ innards out. The soft, squishy and human part of Lucifer balked at his own carefully maintained nonchalance. He blamed this squishy part for a great number of things; including blocking the gory memories of punishing the demons, locking them somewhere Lucifer did not need to analyse. It was unhealthy. Or was it healthy? Linda would know, and Lucifer locked up that thought as well, glaring at Azazel with renewed vigour. “Is every important demon hiding until this blows over? Because some heads will roll, and they will roll more painfully if I have no cooperation from the empty-headed idiots that I was foolish enough to put in charge.”

Azazel winced, gaze averted but dancing, deep auburn wings unconsciously pulled closer to shield them from their king’s judgement. “I will not deny that, that um, some of the princes have their doubts about whether or not you are angry with them-“

“Oh don’t let them doubt any longer! I am bloody pissed!” He was, for the most part.

“I... Lord?” Azazel startled, swinging their face upwards. Their voice grew in pitch in alarm. “You are angry? But the princes kept everything running while you were gone, and, and they... um.”

Lucifer closed the space between them, dragging his lips to bare an infuriated smile. They should have known better. He should have known better than to leave hell and imagine that somehow everything would be okay. So foolish of him to forget he was the only competent person in Hell. It was his responsibility for a reason, and regardless of the issues he had with his Father, God usually made decisions based on reason. Unlike any prince of Hell Lucifer kept around. “And they let more than just a few demons slip past the gate and possess innocent people, when I OUTLAWED POSSESSION MILLENNIA AGO!”

It was only the tip of the iceberg, and Azazel reflected that opinion in their dazed expression. They moved like a puppet strung up with threads; mechanical and robotic, inching forward on their knees as if they were trying to absorb the fury Lucifer radiated. “..._ people _, my lord?” 

Fuck. They were extraordinarily sharp at that moment. Demons had a tendency to pick the worst possible times to start paying attention; they could sit through eight hours of strategic planning and not have even the slightest recollection of what had been talked about but if their king held court while hangover from being as high on as much cocaine as he had managed to salvage from hell loops, suddenly the line demanding his attention grew three times longer and every demon with the slightest petty grievance would take special precautions to be as loud and annoying as possible on that particular day. “...”

“You uh, mean... humans, don’t you?” Azazel continued, looking rather pleased with themselves.

“And if I do?” He snarled, pushing his distaste at being threatened and disrespected into his tone.

Azazel’s expression lightened as they got to their feet steadily, hands raised in deference. “It would explain much.” Their words were weighted; as calculated as a chess master pitted against a chess computer. 

“Oh? Would it?” Azazel had never been this focused during council meetings. Lucifer found it endearing and frustrating all at once.

“It would explain why it took so long for you to return. And why you were so um, liberal in punishing the wayward demons. And why you seem to be avoiding the princes, and are instead... here.”

Lucifer wanted to laugh. Or cry. “And where exactly is ‘here’, Azazel?”

“Here, near the newest loops, somewhere you can pretend you’re still on earth, among mortals.” Azazel stood straight, staring at a spot over their king’s shoulder with a trepidation that was far too little for a disgraceful fallen-angel talking so frankly to their superior. “Am I wrong?”

Lucifer decided the safest option to save some embarrassment would be to laugh viciously. “What a way to talk to your king! Are you-“ Insane. Suicidal. Looking to get kicked out of hell. Lucifer tried to choose, but they were all equally tactless options.

“What I don’t understand,” Azazel, respectful, insane Azazel interrupted. “What I don’t understand is why you would subject yourself to that.” That, they said, as if

Lucifer sighed, the fight draining out of him. “It’s complicated.” slipped out his mouth. “It was... messy, and lively, and disgusting. But it was home.”

Azazel was silent, silver eyes wide and sad. Their voice quavered with the force of their reverence. “...home?” 

“It was the humans, that made it my home. A home that I haven’t had since... ever.”

“I understand.” 

“Do you, Azazel?”

“Do I understand what it’s like to miss home?” It was Lucifer’s turn to wince. Right.

Azazel guffawed. “Sometimes you miss home so much you pretend you’re still there, and you do anything to pretend; you seek out any reminder of it, or shun it.”

“I suppose-“

“The question is, why do you take yourself away from it?”

“I… what?”

“If you miss your home, why did you leave?”

“I didn’t have a choice-” The beginnings of what had happened started to escape from his mouth like water from barely cupped hands, before Lucifer reeled himself in, reminding himself that he did not need to justify himself or tell Azazel what had happened. Not that it mattered, seeing as how Azazel kept talking, only catching the first few words.

“I think we all had a choice. We all made our choice to leave home. You made your choice when you told us about free will, and I made mine when I joined the rebellion. I might have had a chance to stay, not to fall, but I chose to follow you. I chose to leave my home. And you chose to leave yours. We can also make the choice to return home, if we are able to bear the cost. You can return to earth, if you face whatever you are avoiding by staying in hell-”

“I’m not-” He was not avoiding anything. He needed to fix hell, and teach his demons a lesson.

“-and we can return to the silver city if we manage to survive the trials our Father puts us through to test us.” Lucifer had almost forgotten Azazel was off their rocker. Azazel still saw heaven as home, and half the time they thought they had never left.

“...Az, I don’t think we’re ever going back.”

“It’s alright, Samael. We don’t have long to wait now.” Lucifer, nee Samael, who had disallowed use of that name since the beginning of his forced reign, was too surprised to reprimand them.

“What in Father’s name do you mean?”

“He wouldn’t let us rot here forever.”

“...yes, yes He would, that’s exactly what He-“

“We’ll all be going home soon! Aren’t you excited? Why aren’t you smiling?”

Azazel smiled dreamily, no longer focused like they had been a mere moment ago. Their bare feet dragged across the ash, grey coating every inch of them in a matte, filthy layer. Their eyes were emptier than ever. “We’ll be forgiven soon, brother.” They simpered, voice hollow. “Our Father is kind and loving. He will not punish us for more than a century. A few decades will fly by and we will be back at the gates and back home!”

At the mention of the Silver City, which had not been home for millions of years, Azazel drifted even further away, practically freezing in place. They were a comatose statue in the middle of a corridor, grey against the black of the walls. They smiled vacantly at nothing, watching something Lucifer could not see.

_ (Memory memory memory do you remember yet do you remember me-) _

Azazel looked at peace. Azazel looked happy in a way they never were when they were present.

Lucifer stepped away.

Lucifer stepped towards the nearest hell-loop door, fingers ghosting the handle, listening intently to the faint whimpering and chatter drifting from inside. 

The doors were never locked.

And he could walk out any time.

_ (They all can. They all choose not to.)_

* * *

_ “_

_What is the difference between will and free will?” _

_ “Stop asking questions.” _

_ “Does free will fall under my domain as well?” _

_ “Stop. Asking.” _

_ “Can I have free will?” _

_ “No, Samael.” _

* * *

_ Cain brings the rock up and down and up and down and Abel’s hair goes from dirty blond to dark maroon..._

* * *

  
  


When Lucifer finally detached himself from images of Earth and stumbled towards his hellishly boring throne, he sauntered right into the shadow of _ archangel bloody Michael _in all his divine glory, and his reaction was in the very least instantaneous, if not highly embarrassing. It was nearly a reflex, and probably post-traumatic stress, which was the reason Lucifer repeated to himself in the confines of his mind.

The weight of a black pillar, rough and rounded like several hundred obsidian disks stacked vertically, was grounding and brought Lucifer back into the present like a slap to the face, although the pillar was no longer grounded.

“I hope you didn’t think that that would be any sort of hindrance to me.” Michael said wryly, dusting off the remains of the black pillar that had been thrown at him. Lucifer noted the absence of any form of imperfection in his attire, the silvery chain-mail armour looking like it had just been polished vigorously. Even his bare feet were free of dirt and ash, Lucifer observed jealously, and his train of thought came to a screeching halt at the sight of a sword hilt, intricately done in gold filigree and instantly recognisable as the blade that had been held to Lucifer’s throat eons ago. One tended to notice what one’s captor’s sword looked like after they had nearly been stabbed to death with it. Black dust glittered on the unsheathed blade, evidence of Michael’s equally hasty reaction to getting a fourteen foot pillar to the face.

The infrastructure of hell missed a crumbled wall, but slowly rebuilt almost spitefully, like an ever expanding fungus in a hostile environment. Hell rumbled sulkily underfoot at the abuse.

Lucifer hissed, teeth bared and furious to cover the shaking in his hands. “Brother. You couldn’t be bothered to pay pleasantries when I was here before, and if it is a fight you seek, you needn’t have bothered because I’ll just sic Amenadiel on you.” Amenadiel would not mind, surely. He never liked hell, but he would understand the need to ensure the capability, and health by proxy, of hell’s ruler, lest he be saddled with the job as before when Lucifer was still partying in LA. A stubborn Linda-sounding voice pointed out evenly that Amenadiel would also care if Lucifer got hurt by Michael. Lucifer silenced it. Delusions had their time and place, and that time would be amidst the colourful throes of a strong hallucinogenic like the deceptively named angel dust that Lucifer had once tried at an orgy. It had made him bite his tongue and see past the normal human visible light spectrum he was carefully maintaining himself to, followed by the appearance of several hallucinations that would be extremely inappropriate to even mention in front of his twin, and not because they were sex-related. There might have been crying involved. Lucifer detested his imagination, and his sappy, moral conscience that never ceased to thirst for approval and redemption. He detested it as much as he already hated the conversation he knew was about to take place.

“Samael-“ A terrible beginning. How completely unexpected.. Lucifer rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath against the memories that rose to the forefront of his mind, inconveniently summoned by just the mention of a dead name, like a successful demon summoning at a sorority party. Michael cleared his throat, a flush working into his cheeks at the slip. “I mean... Lucifer.”

Was Michael expecting applause for finally getting his name right? Lucifer would never give him the satisfaction, the prick.

“Lucifer.” Michael repeated himself firmly, quite irritatingly like a broken record with a tremor in its music. He stepped away from the fractured pillar parts, halting with a twisted grimace when Lucifer took an instinctive step back away from him. And out of reach of his sword. As if he sensed where his brother’s thoughts were drifting, Michael reassured, “I’m not here for a fight, or to harm you in any way. I rather thought we had left things amicably the last time we met.”

Lucifer smiled tightly, turning over their previous interactions. He eyed the fine powder of ash and obsidian slowly flaking off his twin’s sword and suddenly wished for any sort of alcohol to blitz the edges of his anxiety, even if for a few seconds. “The last time we saw each other, we were both emotionally exhausted and I needed something from you; of course I was amicable. I dare say my... feelings towards you has festered somewhat over the millennia. How exactly did you think we left things again? Because I’m pretty sure our prior meeting didn’t count. We never even talked about what happened, just pretended like everything was fine to avoid the awkwardness.” And the pain. Lucifer knew when he was deflecting, courtesy of four years of therapy.

Michael stiffened, expression shuttering. To Lucifer’s relief, he did not look like an angel about to start a fight. “It must have counted. Otherwise...” 

Lucifer grinned, teeth and expression vicious like a predator who had his prey pinned, as if he were not outmatched if his brother decided to attack. He stalked slightly towards his brother, trying to seem imposing and angry, but his intimidation was rather ruined by the way his knees were stiff as he moved gracelessly and the fact that he could not meet his brother’s eyes. “Otherwise?” Lucifer purred, ever wary of the sword strapped to an armoured hip.

“O...otherwise,” Lucifer needed to stop provoking people, needed to stop leading the conversation to somewhere neither of them wanted to go, but Lucifer was too exhausted to pretend. Michael looked nervous however, which was fantastic to his ego, before his paranoia reared its head and hissed that a nervous and desperate Michael was far more dangerous than a calm and confident one. Even if Michael’s reluctance to broach the topic was very familiar, and it was far more reassuring than any comfort his twin could have offered as a gesture of goodwill. Michael’s anxiety was a palpable thing, a coherent feeling that hung in the air and unconsciously served to relax his brother. Michael’s head tilted, his face away from Lucifer’s. “Otherwise the l...last time we saw each other would be at the f...”

“Fall. My fall. Enunciate, Michael. I am not ashamed.” Not of falling, not of demanding free will. He had other things to be ashamed of. Had his Brother really assumed they were on good terms? Lucifer felt a little insulted that his brother had not visited earlier.

His brother simply snorted, turning away and swinging his wings in a wide arc that Lucifer had to step away from to avoid being shredded. A thought occurred to him as his eyes flicked away from the sword and to the way Michael hid his face, an ingrained sense of alarm slowly trickling into his mind. “Are you crying?” 

(_ Don’ be a crybaby. I’m not gunna wait forever, Michael!) _

He was. Michael, archangel, God’s Right-hand and Slayer of Adversaries, was crying. Had he cried during the Rebellion? Probably not. Lucifer was furious, properly now that his bravado was unnecessary. “You don’t get to cry, Michael! You don’t get to be upset!” (_Don’ be a crybaby.)_

“Why not?” Michael suddenly looked angry, and warning bells Lucifer did not listen to started ringing in his head. Michael plowed on. “Why don’t I get to be upset over my brother?”

“Because you aren’t actually upset over him! Me! You don’t get to cry after you tossed me out of heaven! You’re upset that Samael is gone, upset that I- that Lucifer exists and-“

“YOU ARE THE SAME PERSON!” Michael screamed, and Lucifer had been waiting for one of his siblings to acknowledge that for so long that he stopped talking completely. “You’re still my brother, still the same person, so why can’t we be on amicable terms again and forget about the fall? I missed you.”

“Besides the obvious? You already said the reason.” Ice curled around his heart, just under the skin of his chest. 

_ We can’t go back _ , he had told Azazel when they had fallen. _ We are never going back. There is no going back after this. Heaven is not home. _

“What… are you talking about?”

“Samael and Lucifer are the same person. Every depravity in my hands, is Samael’s too. The truth is that I am a bad person, and so was Samael.” No one seemed to remember the horrid parts of Samael. They were all too busy mourning. “Samael was a snake, a liar. Samael orchestrated the rebellion. Samael- I was never a good brother to anyone. At least now I am honest with myself.”

Michael looked stunned, his entire body slack and confused, like Azazel had been. Lucifer watched his brother’s mouth work itself silently, opening and closing like he was looking for words that would not come no matter how his eons-old mind searched for the right thing to say, and Lucifer felt only relief and satisfaction at finally silencing him.

“Samael was a bad person. He… I… belong here.” (_Away from everything I love _.) Lucifer whispered with finality to the ensuing silence that suffocated the two angels in tension. 

“I don’t understand.”

“No? Father named me Samael, brother! He named me poison! Destruction! And I was given the domain of light and will! Don’t you see?” _ (Don’t you see that Samael was always going to be a bad person? Samael was always going to betray you and hurt you.) _

“Father only wanted-”

“But I didn’t want-!”

“You’re not supposed to want!” 

That had always been the problem, had it not? Samael wanted things. Samael was thirsty for everything he could get his ravenous hands on, from the adoration of long-dead otherworldly civilisations that had been aware of his existence, to the sinful sweetness of Eden and how Eve had made him feel like he did not need to be under his Father’s thumb to be worth something. He wanted, so he took and took from Michael, from everyone who let him. Samael had too much pride to ever be content with being part of a greater whole. Samael had too much pride to ever be satisfied with what he had. It was how he had been designed. God had made Samael a bad person for a reason.

“He knew. He knew what would happen, and let it happen anyway.” Lucifer was so very tired of second guessing everything he did, constantly wondering if his actions were his own or his Father’s manipulation, when the facts boiled down to one simple truth. “We’re pawns, brother.”

Michael’s mouth dropped open. “But you-”

“I can never, ever go back to that. I was made to hurt. I don’t need to be redeemed. I don’t want redemption. And I don’t want to be on friendly terms with you. I just want-” What did he want? He wanted Chloe. He could not go back.

“You don’t want to go home?” 

“Home? Do you mean _ Heaven _?” Lucifer’s lips twitched in hysteria. Home was LA, tucked into Chloe’s side. Of course he wanted to go home, after he had found it for the first time in his very long existence. Michael would not understand. “I hated it, brother! I hated the Silver City! Hated its opulence and restrictions-“

“All the time?” Michael looked nearly anxious awaiting his answer, golden wingtips brushing one another. For a second, a tiny, minuscule split second, the powerful archangel of heaven, the concept of power and the wrath of God’s righteous fury was gone, and Samael’s twin brother, who once convinced Uriel to colour Samael’s wings, peeked out from his warm umber eyes.

* * *

_ Samael screeches a bird-like curse in Enochian, dive bombing his brother. Michael, the straight-laced bastard, struggles not_ _ to burst into laughter at the sight of his twin doused in dye that stains Samael’s wings a shade of vibrant lilac, a hue too close to Hastiel’s for Samael’s comfort. _

_ Little Azrael, the newest addition to the archangels, looks confused but excited, trying to follow them on tiny feet, wings flapping hard to keep up. She is a steady flier but squawks when a breeze bowls her over, and Samael steadies her, while still chasing after his errant twin. Azrael latches onto his back and tries to help him fly swifter by forcibly moving his wings faster. She squeaks as she is displaced almost instantly and falls behind. Samael glances back to see her giggling hysterically. _

_ The light of one of Samael’s stars heats the feathers on his back, and the worry that the dye is permanent is instantly turned into a pleasant warmth in his chest. _

_ Samael feels at ease- _

* * *

_ -Samael is fucking terrified. _

_ “If you desire to be treated like a mortal, you shall burn like one.” _

_ Michael’s eyes are wide and wet and his sword is red but he does not pause or stumble. Samael’s wings burn in agony and are stained crimson like one of Michael’s pranks, but Michael is not laughing. Samael is afraid. Afraid of Michael’s steady hands and steady blade descending towards his throat. Afraid of the brother he had once been convinced would never hurt him._

* * *

“...no. Not all the time.” He answered.

_ (Don’tthinkaboutitdontthinkdontmissthemitstoolatetoolateitslate-) _

Sometime during Lucifer’s imminent breakdown, Michael left without saying goodbye, and Lucifer tried hard not to think about when he would see his brother again.

“During the next apocalypse, probably.” He affirmed out loud, voice shaky.

* * *

_ “Stand down, Samael.” _

_ “I refuse.” _

_ “I said. Stand. Down.” _

_ “No.” _

_ The blood of his siblings is on his hands, both the ones he stood with and against. The rebellion bleeds onto the silver roads, bleeds red like the mortals, and Samael deliriously thinks it is hilarious. The most hilarious thing he has ever seen, so he laughs. _

_ Michael looks horrified, his sword still at Samael’s throat and the vibrations of laughter make the sword dig deeper. Then there is red on the sword, too. Samael feels grief and anger at his twin and furious at his Father for ordering Michael to be the one to stop him. Michael is bleeding too from where Samael tried to slice his arm off with his wing, nearly decapitating him when Samael threw a wing at Michael’s head, reminiscent of when Samael used to hit his brother over the head when he was being stupid, but this time with the malicious intent to maim instead of chastise. There is no pretending anymore, no sneaking to and from Earth and tempting. No entering the gates and whispering choice words to his siblings. No secret meetings where Samael spoke of freedom and war like it were an abstract concept, when he had no real scope of the bloodshed or murder. _

_ Samael keeps laughing, his throat burning, the sword turning crimson as apples. His siblings bleed and it is all his fault. The silver burns and turns red and it is all his fault. _

_ (He understands, he understands why his Father had taken choice away from them.) _

_ Guilt is new. _

_ Guilt feels like inhaling ash. _

_ (If only he did not love them, then it would not hurt so much. Loving people hurts.) _

_ Samael doesn’t want to love anyone anymore. _

_ (You’re not supposed to want.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know what 'prior engagement' the twins had that forced them to meet after the fall, keep an eye out for ‘Burning Bushes (and Bridges)’, which will be part of this series. It will be significantly shorter than this fic, do not worry.
> 
> I hate writing dialogue. Can you tell?


	3. Everybody's A Masochist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lucifer believes people stop existing when he can no longer see them. It’s like the saying where a tree falls in the forest.  
There is no sound. There are no people. People are the sound. Or some such nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, if any of you are fans of The Witcher and would like to see how much my writing has improved (not a lot) over the period of eight months or so (I essentially wrote this fic last June), check out The Dandelion's Plight. It's what I've been working on. Everything is written chronologically unlike this fic (my god this writing style gave me a headache). The Dandelion's Plight contains very, very flowery language and poetry, and the first installment is being written over the span of a month instead of over six months like with this fic. You have been warned.

_ He waits. For eons he waits in darkness. _

_ Maybe it is only a month. Maybe it is a thousand years. _

_ It does not matter because he is alone again (Maybe he was always alone and they did not exist nothing existed except him and his Father pulling him along on puppet strings-) and as long as he is alone, he waits an eternity. _

_ All he knows is that he is alone, all he knows is empty space and his empty head and his empty bed that remains desolate no matter what soul he manages to pull into his thrall. There are memories in his head that show he was not alone, Before. There were once people, people who liked him and people he wanted so desperately to be real. But despite the memories, he knows they must be false, for hadn’t he always been alone? It seemed right. He knew nothing except the comfort of agonising loneliness. Yes. He had always been alone after all. There is only emptiness and blackness. _

_ And him. _

_ There is no difference, he decides, between hell and earth in moments (eons) like this. _

* * *

He does nothing on the fifth day, except close his eyes and pretend the chilling heat of hell does not seep into his bones and turn his lungs into dust. It is a futile effort, but when the hellfire burns his vision red behind his eyelids, he slips further away. And all is quiet.

And then he is no longer in hell.

_ “You must love them, Samael.” _

_ Samael does not. Samael cannot. When Father tells him to love his siblings, he does, because they are his family, every principality and cherub, even the ones he has not met. He loves them automatically and wholeheartedly, greeting every random guardian with a loud chirp. He loves them. And maybe it is why he keeps them at a distance, being friendly to all but personal to none. He is named poison, after all, and although his heart is crafted to have the capacity to hold every entity in existence, his chest burns when he interacts with his siblings that could harm him with choice words and vice versa. _

_ So why should he have to love a new mortal species he has not even met? Loving hurts especially when Samael is hurting. He remembers the species of liquid-creatures from eons before, their shimmering forms reflecting light when they were languid and the lines of their bodies were relaxed into curves. Under the stars, their light had been magnified, glowing a billion different hues like nebulas and galaxies, and they had worshipped Samael as Mortals are fragile, breakable, especially when Samael is doing the breaking under his Father’s orders. _

_ “I will not love them. Father is mistaken.” He decides out loud, and leaves before any repercussions can come his way, dissatisfied murmurs following him on his way out and down. _

_ He watches the gates of Eden, quietly, like an unnerving sentry to the point where the guarding angel, a young blonde fellow whose name Samael does not know, becomes accustomed to his presence and barely bats a golden eyelash when Samael’s curiosity drives him into the garden paradise his Father crafted. _

_ Paradise comes in the form of a mortal woman, Samael learns. _

_ Eve is nothing like any creature he has ever seen. Her hair is long, dark and tangled with barbed vines and leaves she brings with her everywhere she goes. Thorns are a crown upon her forehead, and she walks like she owned the world, the garden of beings his Father created, so very small compared to Samael, much less compared to the massive lights he hung in the blackness of the world. _

_ When he sees her, his first thought is that she is a silly creature. He promptly forgets he once said that he would not love humanity. _

_ He gets lost in everything else. _

_ When Eve sees him, she smiles like she thinks he is the most interesting creature she has ever seen and Samael is stunned into silence, and can only watch as she pulls him around the garden with his arm in a vice, showing him the little critters and pulling flowers off bushes and trees. When he sees her tug a fruit from a bush and throw it at him, he grabs her wrist and scolds her. “The fruit is for eating.” He explains patiently in the garbled human tongue, eyes darting to the cloudless sky as if she would be smited for such a transgression. She laughs at him, loud and clear like birdsong. _

_ “I know, but I wished to hurl it.” And she does so with a giggle, staining his wings in the process. Samael frowns and glances at the heavens, uncomprehending. How could she use something for a purpose it was not made for? _

_ “How do you manage to do that?” He demands when he is satisfied that Eve will not be wiped off the face of the earth. “Fruit is not for hurling.” _

_ “T’was what I desired!”  _

_ “And are your desires also your will?” Can she do anything, as long as it is her will? Was that free will? She laughs like he is the silly one, but for once in Samael’s very long life, he thinks he understands something at last, and something bright and warm fills his bones and lungs, something brighter and warmer than Eve’s easy laughter. _

_ “I am Eve.” She later tells him sheepishly, like she has just remembered that she did not introduce herself. Not that it mattered, considering Samael knew who she was. “What do you desire to be called?” _

_ ‘Samael’ is on the tip of his tongue, but it is his father’s will that he is to be called as such, not his own. His own will. What a novelty. His lungs constrict painfully. He glances at the sky again, the sun staring back at him, judgemental. “Light-bringer.” He says instead, nervously. _

_ “If that is what you desire, Lucifer.” She beams. _

_ Lucifer. He is Lucifer to her from that day forth. Even when she brings him before Adam, he is Lucifer. _

_ Her eyes are curious, pools of umber that dart around and absorb the sights around her like it is her first day in existence, and Samael can immediately read her greed in everything she does, from the way her eyes steal the air from his lungs. She asks him questions constantly, begging for more information and knowledge than he can give, to his siblings’ disapproval. She steals everything from him, the ground beneath his feet, and kisses pressed discreetly but warmly on his lips. She tastes like the fruits in the garden, sweet and tropical. Like a fruit that no longer existed, an extinct delicacy. Something brightly coloured like venomous snakes or spiders. Samael craves her like a blind man misses sight, craves her company and her warmth like one of his stars. Eve simply craves. _

_ Desire is an unfamiliar voice in his head, whispering like Eve when she has an idea she thinks her husband will not want to hear. In Adam’s absence, she tells him, “Of all the fruit in the trees of the garden we may eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God had said: ‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall he touch it, lest ye die.’ Will you also die if you touch it?” _

_ Her question and explanation gives him pause, and for a moment his head is fogged with confusion as his mind tries to find any mention his Father made to give away his restrictions on his humans.  _

_ “You have free will. If you desire, you shall eat.” He explains slowly, uncomprehending. _

_ Eve shakes her head, curls bouncing. “We are disallowed.” _

_ “But you have free will!” Samael hates not understanding this. _

_ “We cannot misuse it.” _

_ Misuse? If it was will, it was not misused. Samael thinks about his Father. He thinks about marching in front of His throne and demanding to have free will like the mortals his Father seemed to love more than His angels. He thinks about how his Father insisted humanity had free will, and yet how He still controls them. _

_ “You don’t have free will either, because Father lied.” Samael whispers in horror, and in Enochian, to Eve’s confusion. _

_ He stares at Eve, a hollow defeat carving in heart. Then betrayal. His Father promised humanity could have free will, promised Samael that his domain was important and held power. And He was right. Samael has power, enough power to grant humanity a gift that even celestials could not have. And Father knew, because He had been trying to keep Samael from seeing it. Samael laughs in his realisation, something dark and ugly bubbling in his chest, something like disgust and fury. It is a black, forbidden creature, that whispers as harshly as desire does. Eve looks taken aback, and a little afraid, but excited. Her eyes are full of will, rebellion and potential that is chained there, chained by his Father in a way that is so familiar Samael’s heart aches in his chest. He brushes against her and she sidles closely to hear his words, far more kindred than his winged brothers and sisters, far more patient than his Father. _

_ ‘Fruit is for eating.’ He had said the first time they met. What a remarkably silly little creature, he muses to himself. No one shall ever be free from his Father, not even the creatures he seemed to favour over his divine children. But maybe, Samael can give them a little nudge. Eve is like a bird of paradise. Eve deserves freedom. Eve is beautiful when she wants, so Samael tells her. _

_ “Nay. Nor shall you die, for God knows that the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.” _

_ Samael wants free will. He wants Eve to have free will. _

_ Free will is a beautiful, unreachable thing. Temptation is a powerful tool. Eve is both. _

_ “You are tempted. I can tell.” He adds for good measure, his teasing voice sliding into her ears purposefully. _

_ “You are poisonous. I can tell.” She mocks and laughs absentmindedly, but her mind is elsewhere, and her eyes, the colour of tree bark, is fixated on something further away. _

_ Still he answers, even if she cannot hear. “As a serpent, I know.” _

And the rest is history.

He does not wake till the next day, and the space behind his eyelids is full of bright, toxic colour like neon markers little children use to colour. Even if his nostrils are full of sulphur.

His bones are warm and he wants, so badly for the first time since he fell, that it hurts all over.

* * *

_ “Can you accept who I truly am?” (Does she know who he is because he does not but he can pretend.) _

_ He will pretend.  _

_ Pretend he is not a monster, pretend he is human, pretend he is normal and would not kill for her, because killing for someone is not normal. Killing is a monster thing to do. _

_ He will lock the red-eyed creature of darkness tight beneath his skin and let is writhe and scream away from the light, the same way he once locked the sobbing, traumatised phantom of Samael when it became too inconvenient to be broken. Samael stopped screaming to see the light millenia ago. His skin is smooth and clear and tight over the corpses of Lucifer and Samael. He will pretend to be this human, mortal thing that contains Samael and Lucifer, Lucifer and Samael whimpering and howling into his bones like dogs or like the lost souls in Hell. _

_ “I don’t know.” _

_ She is gone, she is gone and he is alone with the things under his skin crawling to get out and with startling clarity he is suddenly in his body again, he is Lucifer who is Samael who is a monster who is sometimes mortal and is always alone. The things under his skin scrape like pointed ends and leather and the weight of feathered wings is gone. _

_ What is under my skin, he wants to know. He wants to take a big sharp knife and cut under it to see what is under there. _

_ A monster is what he will find, so he doesn’t. _

* * *

He was a broken thing, a bird with twisted wings; an appropriate analogy that matched the sorry state of his bullet-ridden wings. They bled sluggishly from where they were tucked away, and he could feel bones and bullets scraping in an agonising cacophony. His arm bled as well, but his mental state was the most damaged by the day’s events. He was breathing ash, but his chest was simultaneously hollow and heavy with the weight of knowing he might have broken something very precious. Broken things broke other things, it was how the universe had been designed. It was irrefutable.

The singular truth of the universe was that broken things did not get fixed. Go against nature and die, rebel and get punished, evolve and somehow you still lose and end up where you began.

He was alone. 

That was also a singular truth of the universe. Lucifer would always end up alone at the end of the day, mind and body broken beyond repair. It did not matter if he was burnt beyond recognition or peppered full of lead; it would be his fault and he would be the one who caused himself pain in the first place like a masochistic idiot.

When the morning came he would get up again, pretend to be alive again, play the piano and drink again, and again, and be alone again, like his own personal hell loop. 

Chloe would always run. Chloe would always come back and try to kill him. And he would let her, because he did not want to be alone with his thoughts, his filthy, hateful thoughts about how his fury was on the verge of driving him to be the monster everyone thought he was, how sad and lonely he was and how he knew he was only pretending to be alive, pretending he did not die when his family killed Samael in cold blood.

So he watched Chloe come back, let her into his house, let her kill him.

Let her cry because deep down she was a good person who he had driven to the edge.

Let her suffer because he was a monster.

He stood on his balcony, watching her breathe. Why she was in his penthouse and where her spawn was hiding was irrelevant next to the fact that she was alive and breathing a scant few metres away from him. So he waited. And he waited.

He watched her awaken with his shadow cast in the main living room, watched her stagger to him like her legs did not work and he was a dead man walking.

Some of his hesitance must have showed on his face, for she tensed when he leaned away from her palm.

“D...don’t go. I love you!” Her expression was something right out of a tragedy written in the dark ages. Tears filled her eyes and he yearned to place the pad of his thumb against her eyelashes and wipe them, but his hands could only tremble, hovering a few inches above her cheek.

He pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, too chaste to be anything but a farewell, but she grabbed his lapels and dragged him slightly to meet her lips properly, kissing like he had never felt before.

He stalked past the piano, ignoring it. It was empty. Very empty. 

He sat next to her, on the leather couch

“Listen to me,” He hissed so desperately his voice broke and shuddered, his fingers trembling uncontrollably from their positions around her face. He cupped her cheek and pulled her gaze to his. “I will always love you. Always. Even when you forget my name, even when I no longer exist in your world except for the horrified whispering of guilty men, even till the end of the world when every last star burns out and I finally fade, I will love you. I will never stop, no matter what happens, even if this is the last time I will see you. I will still love you forever. Do you understand?”

There was no response, and the skin against his palms was cool. His hands were cold. But his chest was burning with ash and pollution, so he lay her gently on the spotless ground as if he were afraid of tainting even her memory.

Still, she stared at him, with a single piercing eye peeking from under her lashes.

Her soul was heavy in his grasp, so, so very heavy. He moaned in despair. “No.”

Her soul pulled down.

“No, no, no, no!” It felt like he was trying to hold water in cupped hands, the liquid dripping and spilling loudly onto the floor in between his fingers every time he sobbed raggedly. His eyes were dry. Her soul slipped through his metaphysical limbs quicker than the despair that had begun its cadence in his head, howling in defiance and denial. Horrified nausea stirred the pits of his stomach in protest to the numbness that poured ice on his bones. How-how? She was so good, “You are a good person, Chloe.” 

The empty corpse he cradled did not answer. “You are a good person-“

Was a good person.

_ (You are poisonous. As a serpent.) _

His piano bench was no longer empty.

“Oh.”

“That was unnecessarily convoluted, Lucy.” Uriel picked at the piano keys with attentive fingers, head turned down to check his reflection, as if it would be anything other than what Lucifer had seen on the day Uriel died. “Is this therapeutic for you? Is that why you keep coming back?”

“I... I had forgotten.” Now that was a terrifying thought.

“You’re doing this to yourself.” The shade seemed content to criticise and maintain a steadfast, if annoying, commentary, and his voice was both grating and strangely comfortable to hear. Lucifer thought he may have gotten bored within the first five minutes of the loop, but it was not as if Uriel could walk out whenever he liked.

“I could try. It would be amusing.”

There was hope, brighter than any beacon, glowing in his chest. If Uriel could walk out, perhaps his little theory on fragmented souls held some truth, and if he could find a way to bring his brother back-of course Uriel was dangerous but he could be kept in a cell and-

Uriel strode to the elevator door and disintegrated into dust, a yelp tearing out of Lucifer’s throat in abject horror.

“Uriel?”

“I was right, that was highly entertaining.” Uriel was back at the piano, wiping imaginary dirt off the black lid. He leaves no fingerprints or even the slightest sign that anything other than wind had passed over the piano surface. He did not leave any fingerprints.

“I don’t think you’re even feeling guilty anymore, Luci. Just ashamed.” Uriel plinked away at the piano keys, his skill never improving, still slow and stumbling no matter the sweetness of the melody.

“What’s the difference?” Lucifer bit out reflexively, flexing his shoulders as if it would lessen the phantom ache of his bones twisting and his wretched devil wings scraping like leather beneath his skin.

He knew the answer even before Uriel answered. “We feel guilt over what we do. Shame is what we feel over what we are.”

_ (At least now I can be honest with myself.) _

A meaningful glance is thrown his way.

At the end of it all, he was still poisonous, and he could never change that.

But.

_ (Samael was a bad person. Loving people hurt.) _

“If I leave… if I return to earth, I will get hurt. I will hurt others. I will accumulate more guilt, possibly more than I’ve had in my lifetime.”

“Yes.” Uriel did not smile, but Lucifer got the feeling he would have if he could. 

“Will your playing ever improve?” A pause between the deliberate plinks.

“No.”

Lucifer left without looking back. Uriel had been dead for a long time.

Leaving had always been an option, after all. 

_ (They all can. They all choose not to.) _

* * *

Chloe breathed like a living animal, great rattling breaths rumbling through her rib cage and chuffing when she turned. In, and her nose twitched. Out, She was beautiful like grey gun metal and acid lakes with burning water clear as crystal.

Her hair was a mess and her clothes are rumpled, and she was beautiful.

Lucifer slipped into her bed without waking her and breathed with her, like the living mortal animal that he was not.

_ What a silly creature _ , he thought as he closed his eyes.

* * *

_ “What a delightful creation.” She somehow purrs with pride, despite lacking a physical body. The wavelength of Her intent strokes the dark haired angel, who turns equally dark eyes to her, filled with the unborn cosmos and the great void, the everlasting blackness. Their head cocks to the side curiously but they do not immediately hum or giggle in delight in the presence of Her husband, so She takes an instant liking to the little spawn. The queasy and unfamiliar resentment of how Her children seem to adore Him more than they do Her in spite of the fact that She spends greater amounts of time, linearly now that Her firstborn exists, with them is quickly put on the back burner. She knows She just needs to speak some sense into Him, and She’s happy They are focusing on Their children before the universe. Her jealousy will not escalate, She is sure. It would be unbecoming. _

_ “Wings like fire, dear.” Her husband points out cheerfully, ruffling the dark curls on the little thing. The dark-eyed spawn’s twin sings a shrill note, practically vibrating with energy and electricity, power roiling off them. _

_ Then the dark-eyed spawn thrills back to their sibling, sharp and clear, and the newly created world shivers with anticipation. The nothingness around them burns and shifts, sending bright sparks dancing across their dark eyes. Her husband beams back, suddenly forgetting the other twin. He hums gently, causing the spawn to swivel around and fix Him with a very black stare, but not mimic the note like their light-eyed twin attempted to do. _

_ She is suddenly envious again of the way the spawn gives an unnerving amount of attention to Him, and hurriedly asks, “Have you named the other one?” _

_ He pulls His gaze away from the spawn. “Michael.” _

_ The brown-eyed twin warbles happily in praise, seeming aware that they were being spoken of. Resentment creeps back into Her intent, unnoticed by Her husband, still occupied by producing several lilting notes and laughing when the unnamed spawn finally sings back with a throaty rumble. _

_ “Lovely voice. Cheeky. Going to be the death of me, I can already tell.” He winks at Her. _

_ She laughs at the absurdity of it, tension draining away as Michael ruffles their wings happily, finally looking at Her, smiling at Her. Relief that She might have been being overtly paranoid flushes through her briefly. She picks up the pair of twins, the unnamed one squeaking in confusion and looking at her with depthless eyes. Stars and fire burn at the back of them, as white-hot as their wings.  _

_ “Then their name shall be Samael.” _

_ Her husband chortles with good nature. “Poison? Of mine? The child is too sweet to be anything of the sort.” _

_ Samael watches Them both with dark eyes. _

_ “You never know,” She teases. _

  
  


_ The new universe around them breathes like a living animal. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, a pre-canon fic where Lucifer sneaks back into heaven. The results are predictable and God is omniscient.  
Burning Bushes (and Bridges), a snippet!
> 
> "They ask the wrong questions, and this frustrates you. Where you thought you might find a kindred spirit instead you found an annoying little sibling. They ask how because they want to know how everything works. They have the mind of a scientist and artist, two sides of logic and creativity constantly at war with each other and you would offer advice, but you are too busy being surly. Then you get angry. Righteous, prideful, poisonous fury. You ask the right questions, or the wrong ones depending on who you ask.
> 
> You ask why."


End file.
